Local team wins Rookie Robotics Award

By the Midland Daily News

Updated 5:30 am, Thursday, March 5, 2015

One of Midland’s three new Robotics teams, Rogue Robots, won the Rookie All Star Award at the Standish District Competition held on Feb. 27 and 28 at the Standish-Sterling High School. The Rookie All Star Award celebrates the rookie team exemplifying a young but strong partnership effort, as well as inspiring students to learn more about science and technology.

To win this award, the team answered questions about the design of the robot, how jobs were chosen among the students, what the students had done to help other robotics teams and what the team had done to inspire other individuals to learn about robotics and technology.

The team explained how they had helped several teams during the competition improve or troubleshoot their computer programming. Rogue Robots is also demonstrating robotics to a fourth grade class at Midland Christian School.

Rogue Robots ranked 20 out of 40 teams and was chosen to be on one of the playoff alliances, which finished fourth in the tournament. The Rogue Robots also received a Safety Award given by the Underwriters Laboratory Safety Team.

“I’m thrilled by the team’s performance,” said Terry Stearns, coach for the Rogue Robots. “It was truly a team effort and we couldn’t have done it without the help of our sponsors and team 2619, The Charge. The Charge has given us advice, answered our questions, and let us borrow their tools, their building and their expertise.”

Rogue Robots is sponsored by Midland Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, US FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), FIRST of the Great Lakes Bay Region, Sanford Hardware, HTSE Inc. and Lowe’s of Midland.

The Rogue Robots are a new team composed of Midland homeschoolers. Rogue Robots will be participating at the FIRST Robotics tournament at Dow High on March 20 and 21.